by Lynn Shurr
“Miss Winnie, Miss Winnie,” Teddy pleaded as soon as the laughter died down. “I want to show you how good I can walk with my sticks now, even in the sand. Let’s go to our beach right now.”
“That’s great Teddy, but I don’t think so. It’s dark out and getting late.”
Teddy threw his new mama a desperate look. Nell caught it smoothly. “Please Winnie, it would mean so much to him. Afterwards, we’ll have cake and punch and get the children to bed. The lights are on along the pathway, and it is a beautiful spring night.”
“Okay.” She could endure a little heartache for Teddy’s sake. She shook her finger at the rest of the children. “Don’t eat all the cake while I’m gone.” That sent them into gales of giggles, heaven knew why. The Billodeaux children had been very easy to entertain all evening.
Nurse Shammy and Brinsley went along for the walk. They stayed at the edge of the beach when Teddy got out of his chair and took up his crutches, easing his paralyzed lower legs along the paved path and then cutting off at a place that held too many memories for Winnie.
“You’re doing so well. Now let’s go back. Don’t go any farther.”
Teddy pushed on laboring against the sand, disappearing behind a clump of too familiar bushes. “I said come back!”
Faintly, she heard Teddy call, “I can’t. I’m stuck. I fell down.”
Nothing else she could do but go after him. Maybe it was better she face the place where she and Adam first made love and put it out of her mind forever. She rounded the bushes. “Adam,” she said.
Teddy hurried to backtrack though his shoulders ached badly. He found Nurse Shammy and Brinsley waiting for him on the path and fell into his chair with relief. “I think I did a good job and made up for being bad before,” he told them.
“Yes, it is never too late to make amends,” Nurse Shammy said.
Brinsley carried the crutches as Teddy whizzed ahead eager to tell the rest of the family about his success. The nurse and the butler followed more slowly. The night did hold all the promise of spring, rebirth, and renewal along with the faint scent of honeysuckle and the song of one mockingbird still seeking a mate. Brinsley took his companion’s hand.
“A lovely evening for a stroll, Edith.”
“That it is, Clive.”
They entered the kitchen where Corazon finished piping the words, “Happy Engagement, Winnie and Adam” on a very large, multilayered hummingbird cake before she glanced up and noticed the clasped hands. “Do I need to add two more names?”
“Oh my, no! Clive—Mr. Brinsley merely helped me over the oak roots.” Nurse Shammy’s gaunt cheeks flushed, and Brinsley’s pale face reddened.
The butler seized the huge silver bowl of pineapple and ginger ale punch with its floating ice ring of strawberries. “I shall take this into the dining room.”
Nurse Shammy fanned her face. “Hot flash.” She regarded the message on the cake. “What if she refuses the ring?”
Corazon held up a spatula. “Then we scrape it off and still eat cake. I don’t go to all this trouble for nothing. But me, I think we gonna have a party real soon.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Standing by their palm trees, Adam Malala wore only his lava-lava wrapped up like a loincloth despite a slight chill in the spring air that puckered his nipples. Winnie swore he’d oiled his body and tucked a sprig of coral azaleas from Nell’s landscaping behind his ear simply to remind her of the night he’d danced for her at the fiafia. He began to move, making those strong, graceful gestures again, still powerful without the music. Experiencing emotions as potent as an aphrodisiac, Winnie yearned to go close and trace the lines of his intricate tattoos right to his center where all the designs led.
Instead, she summoned up her best nurse-with-a-naughty-patient voice. “What do you think you are doing? Why are you here and not with Pala?”
He continued to sway, coming nearer. “I am courting you, not Pala, never Pala. I dance only for the woman I love.”
Winnie made herself pretend she didn’t hear that last statement. Much as she disliked Pala, what Adam had done to her was wrong. “Yet she was good enough to take to bed in the time it took me to buy some souvenirs. She valued her virginity, Adam. How could you take it and kick her aside?”
“So many questions. Sometimes you think too much, lovely Winnie. You mistake ketchup for blood on a sheet, lies for truth, and yourself for second best. Pala wove a spider’s web to destroy you, and my pretty palagi moth flew right into it. She came to our room to tempt me. I told her to go and locked myself in the bathroom. I regret I did not put her out more forcefully, but I don’t care to manhandle women.”
He danced so close now she could feel his body heat and a weakening in her knees demanding she lie down in the sand with this man, this gorgeous man. Winnie made a last effort at resistance. “You expect me to believe that?”
“You believed I did not kill Sammy Tau, went out and looked for proof. I brought the sheet if you need evidence that I did not make love to Pala. A test will show I lay with you only—and confirm a messy ketchup stain.” He brushed his body against hers, lifted her long hair, and kissed her neck.
Her arms went around him, and she breathed against his bare chest. “I feel as if I am stealing you away from paradise and your family. You might be unhappy later.”
“I left that particular paradise behind when I went to college. By agreeing to marry Pala, I made my last effort to go back there and please everyone but myself. We’ll create our own paradise somewhere else, Winnie.”
Adam slid down the length of her body and knelt in the sand at her feet. Her breasts throbbed with his absence. He took the small box from a fold in the lava-lava and offered her the yellow diamond. “I planned to buy this in Honolulu and offer it to you by a waterfall on Maui to remind you of our time at Nu’uuli, but you ran away. Winnie Green, will you stand by me and make me your husband?”
Winnie went to her knees in front of him and cupped his broad face. “Yes, Adam Malala, I will.” She tugged at his tightly wrapped lava-lava until it fell free.
He pressed his erection hard between her legs while he fumbled with the annoying buttons of her blouse and the zipper of her slacks. “When it comes to clothes, the Samoan way is better,” he complained.
****
In the cabin where Knox Polk operated the surveillance screens that guarded Lorena Ranch from intruders, Nell said to Joe, “Time to turn this off, and not a word that we wired the beach area while they were gone. I am fairly sure her answer is yes.”
“I’ll say. I’ve seen Adam’s naked butt and those tattoos in the locker room but really don’t want the expansion team part of him burned into my brain.” Joe flicked off the monitor. “Knox, how about you go over to the house and tell everyone the party starts in a half hour.”
“Be happy to do that.” Knox sauntered out with a knowing smile on his usually serious lips.
“Let’s see, Mintay and the Rev are watching their kids, ours, and Corazon’s boy. Corazon, Brinsley, and Nurse Shammy are protecting the refreshments from our horde. We have maybe twenty free minutes,” Nell said thoughtfully. “I have to say that particular kind of Samoan dancing is very arousing.”
Joe put his hands on his waist and rotated his slim hips. “Maybe I could manage some naked zydeco, sugar. I know for a fact Adam never locks his cabin. I’ll bet the sheets are still clean.”
“Twenty minutes, no more. I’ll have to put clean linens on the bed.”
“You know one of my favorite sayings. When you see an opening, take it. Allons!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Professors Edwin and Sondra Green stiffly occupied the large, overstuffed couch in the Rev’s spacious living room overlooking the Versailles golf course. They did not allow their backbones to relax against the comfortable cushions. Winnie’s beloved Nana sat with them. The women’s hands lay clasped tightly in their laps, and her father’s fingers dug into the soft upholstery. They said, “This
is certainly a surprise” and “We wish you the best” and “How happy you seem, Winnie,” but their eyes broadcast the message, “Our little girl has gone native.”
Sitting cross-legged and barefooted on the floor and leaning against Adam’s muscular, tattooed thigh, Winnie admitted to herself she enjoyed their discomfort. Late onset rebellion, she realized. Intentionally, she wore a lava-lava that exposed her darker skin and a flower in her untamed hair, frizzy with Louisiana humidity. Adam refused to meet her parents in Samoan dress. He tied back his hair, put on a red Sinners polo shirt and shorts that exposed only the lowest part of his tattoos. Nana could not take her eyes off of his body art, though she would have been to first to say staring is the height of bad manners.
“I thought we should just have a simple service at the Rev’s church and a nice party for our close friends afterwards,” Adam said.
“Since Winnie is a divorced woman that would be most appropriate. She should not wear white,” Nana commented, posture perfect and impeccably dressed as if she planned to go to church directly after meeting Adam.
“But, I said since Adam is an only child and never been married before, his mother will be upset if we don’t do the full fa’alavelave. That’s a gift exchange ceremony. I mean she has been storing rooms full of fine mats and canned corned beef since last year anticipating his wedding. Ela was very upset when we left Samoa and would not come to the phone when we called to tell her about our engagement. When his father told her we wanted to have the ceremony in Samoa, she finally relented.”
Nana’s eyes, green like Winnie’s, projected a look of horror. “You plan to serve corned beef at this lavelave affair?”
Adam gave her his dazzling smile, and the elderly woman softened her posture a little. “No, Nana, we will also have roasted pig, lobster, chicken, taro, and chop suey. Maybe macaroni and potato salad, too.”
“Yes, you can’t lack for starchy foods at a Samoan feast,” Winnie agreed. She did so enjoy watching the faces of her slim, health conscious family as they digested all this information.
Only the Rev, sitting off to one side with Mintay, smiled. “Sounds real good to me.”
“We realize your family doesn’t have any fine mats to trade, but a couple dozen bolts of good cloth will make up for that. Maybe we could substitute some good perfumes to exchange for the fragrant oils,” Adam continued.
“Wait, wait! We are moving along entirely too fast,” Dr. Edwin Green asserted with arms crossed over his narrow chest. “What about the other woman those scurrilous papers said you intended to marry? For all we know, you might have another wife in Samoa.”
On the verge of laughing, Adam grinned wider than ever. “Oh, we gave up having two wives or more when the missionaries arrived. Shortly after we returned to the States, my father tells me Pala accepted the proposal of a high ranking chief who has been widowed for a year and has six children to raise. Two are nearly grown, but the others need a mother. The matai claims he is still young enough to give Pala six more of her own. He has a great belly and a very fine two-story house. They will marry in May and plan to have a thirty-pig reception. We want to have our ceremony in June and must have at least forty pigs. You need to supply a wedding gown for the reception, but my mother will pick out a few for the church service, and Winnie can choose the one she likes for that.”
The hands resting in Dr. Sondra Green’s lap twisted together. “We do want to honor your customs, but you have to realize we are college professors, not millionaires. Why, traveling to Samoa will take a large chunk out of our budget already.”
“No worries. Joe Dean Billodeaux plans to charter a jet to fly his family to the islands. You are welcome to ride with him and any of the Sinners team who want to attend,” Adam assured them.
The Rev held up his big hand as if he were going to bless his congregation. “Put me down for twenty pigs and a dozen bolts of cloth. As long as there is a Christian ceremony first, I want our family to do this up right.”
“Our friend, Davita Tomanaga, is the Methodist minister. He will perform the service.” Adam squeezed Winnie’s hand.
“Won’t the LMS minister be upset?” she asked.
“Not if he is a guest of honor and gets his own cake. My mother will take care of the cake, three tiers at least with a dozen smaller ones for the matai and other honored guests to take home.”
“Oh, my, what shall I wear?” Nana worried.
“The puletasi I bought for you and Mama. You will look marvelous. You always do.”
“I will give you a check for all your obligations. You have no extended family to chip in. Just don’t let on to my mother I paid for your part,” Adam told them.
Slowly the shock wore off and other questions surfaced. Sondra Green’s usually smooth brow wrinkled above her wire-rimmed glasses. “Winnie, where do the two of you intend to live?”
Adam answered for her daughter. “We want a house with a beach and palm trees, maybe on an island, with a big guest house for visitors.”
“In—in American Samoa?”
“I was thinking Florida.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful! Not so very far away.”
Winnie covered Adam’s large, dark hand with her long, slender fingers. “If we have children—”
“When we have children,” he corrected.
“I want them to know their Samoan family and way of life. I think we should spend two months of the year on the island.”
“Her idea,” Adam said.
“I also want them to be able to fulfill their dreams and ambitions and enjoy individual achievement. They should be educated here.”
“You’ve given this a great deal of thought,” her father said. “That is good, very prudent.”
“Winnie has. I haven’t gotten much beyond the wedding plans yet.” Adam snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot. The bride must perform a traditional dance in her second wedding gown to open the reception.”
“You know I don’t dance well! I’ll be embarrassed with Pala looking on, she does it so perfectly. No, I can’t.” Winnie covered her face already imagining her clumsy disgrace.
Adam parted her hands and lowered them. “We will find an instructor for you. Whatever you do will please me more than any dance of Pala’s.”
“What we have here is a good start to a marriage.” The Rev did stand this time and offered a blessing.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The blessing must have helped because in the slightly drier season of June in Samoa, no rain fell on the numerous white canopies that shaded the wedding guests behind the Malala home. Reverend Tomanaga conducted a very traditional Methodist service in both English and Samoan, the choir’s voices soared in the flower-festooned church, and as the bride and groom left the church, the new bell in the tower rang joyously proclaiming that Edwina Green and Adam Malala were man and wife.
In a bedroom of the house, Nell and Mintay helped Winnie out the wedding gown chosen from three offered by Ela. All of her mother-in-law’s selections resembled huge piles of whipped cream and made Winnie feel like one of those Barbie dolls trapped inside a wide skirt of cake as she tried them on. She’d started to choose the least elaborate, but seeing the disappointment on Ela’s face settled on the second with its three-tiered veil and short train. Her friends assured her that with her slim figure, she could carry it off, and perhaps she had.
Now, gratefully, she shimmed into the dress she’d chosen with her mother, sister, and Nana—a simple silk sheath of the palest yellow that showed off her narrow hips and upturned breasts, but was covered in swirling patterns of tiny pearls, crystals, and sequins that caught the light as she moved. Winnie took her hair down, brushed it out, and crowned it with a simple headpiece made of the plumeria blossoms Adam always said she resembled. With that last step taken she was as ready as she ever would be to dance in front of hundreds of guests.
Mintay patted her shoulder. “You go, girl. Show them what you can do.”
With her usual hard w
ork ethic, Winnie had perfected her one dance. She swayed in time to the music provided by the hired band from Pago Pago and displayed her graceful arm movements and subtle footwork. No, she would never be as good at this as Pala who sat looking a little green beside her three-hundred pound, middle-aged husband. Pala’s matai hinted during the congratulations at the church that he believed his wife already carried a child. Perhaps she did and that accounted for her ill expression, but Winnie believed envy had something to do with it, too. No matter, tonight she danced only for Adam, and by the look on his face, she did her dance well.
The feasting began with overflowing plates delivered by rank first to the ministers and matai, the elders, the school principle, the owner and coach of the Sinners, the rest of the team, and so on down the line. Ela had chosen Brinsley in his immaculate white linen suit to serve the most important guests. He, Nana, Corazon, and Shammy filled in as elders for Winnie’s family and did their job impeccably. Winnie’s nephews and niece and all the older Billodeaux children were pressed into service to serve the other guests as was traditional. Even Teddy, a towel on his lap, managed to wheel out one plate at a time. Only Stacy balked. Brinsley reminded her that sophisticated people learned the customs of others when in their country and that settled the matter. Easily half the food slid into containers to be taken home before anyone chowed down.
Well up to the task, the Rev gave a long congratulatory speech and blessed the couple. The incredible five-tiered cake covered in Samoan designs and connected to islands of smaller cakes by little bridges disappeared into mouths and baskets. The parade of gifts began with the women of Ela’s family shaking out the fine mats to be admired. The wives of the Sinners, Nell, Stevie, Cassie, Precious, Sharlette and more, unrolled the bolts of cloth and paraded them around. Their hefty husbands, Joe and Connor, Howdy, Calvin, Asa and the rest of the Sinners team, persuaded to wear red shirts with black lava-lavas, carried the uneaten pigs adorned with spikes of red ginger on planks. Bottles of fragrant oil were exchanged for some very nice perfumes selected by Nana. Winnie felt part of a new, larger family and grateful to all of them for their help.